For some reason the software must not be setting the anamorphic flag. I don't use DVDSP, but the setting for "16:9 letterbox" sounds suspicious. I'd look for an option that has the word "anamorphic" in it.

The other options are 16:9 Pan and scan, 16:9 pan and scan & letterbox, both of which yielded identical results as my first attempt. There is also 4:3 but that looked clearly wrong in the DVDSP viewer.

I'm begining to wonder if I have an incorrect setting in FCP (5.1.4) itself.

I also use Shake and had an issue when I roundtripped some clips to that. It showed up correctly in Shake but on its return to FCP had the apparent opposite issue to what I'm facing here. That is the image was squeezed such that things looked too fat. I resolved that in Shake by resizing the aspect ratio before sending back to FCP.

Any thoughts on what could be wrong in FCP? Guess I'll be trashing preferences in a minute to see if that helps.

The 16:9 letterbox is a setting that imbeds the black bars on the top and bottom of a 4:3 image. Putting your animorphic video within the 720x480 constraints. So your video was 853x480 and now it's 720x405. You also loose alot of quality, because now your image is smaller.
Panscan setting leaves the image at 853x480 and there are no black bars, this is ideal for wide TVs. The only catch is that when playing back on a 4:3 TV the image is fullscreen and the left and right sides of the image are cropped out.
The Letterbox and Panscan setting Adjusts to whatever tv you have, wide for widescreen TVs, and letterbox for 4:3 TVs.
Correct me if I'm wrong...

The video playing back stretched is something I've never seen before. I would check that the original video was exported properly as animorphic.

Are you certain that the DVD player is set in the DVD player setup menu to play on a 4:3 monitor? It sounds like it is set for a 16:9 TV.

When I burn DVD's Authored the way I wrote the walkthrough, I can view them with bars on a 4:3 tv, or full screen on my plasma in the native 16:9.

I dont mean to come off as a dick, but I really dont understand where people are having such a hard time with such simple stuff. If editors worried less about magical codecs that create pixie dust encrusted uncompressed timelines in FCP that take all day to render a simple 1080i/p 30 minute piece, that will end up on a DVD playing on a brides 32 inch 10 year old Sanyo, or an executive's 50 inch Plasma.

No offense (and I could just be having a bad day today) but simplicity is most often the way to go as an editor/DVD Author. Use what Final Cut Studio/DVDSP/your camera's manufacture suggests. HDV is and always will be a compressed format, interlaced will always look like shit on our LCD's when we preview the DVD, 24p is overrated (in my opinion), my JVCHD110U was a waste of money (always in the shop more than I get to use it) and Final Cut Studio 2 has never, ever given me 1 hiccup, or issue. So I must ask, what are you guys doing wrong?

Open up DVDSP, look at the specs of the project, if it says display mode 4:3, then your set, because it will "Display" on the computer your disc at a 4:3 aspect. I do not touch DVDSP at all other than to use it and like I said above, my 16:9 material works flaw free on both kinds of tv's.

You can always change the aspect in the preview while watching your new DVD, change it from 4:3, 16:9, and p/s, but that does not mean it changes the Mpeg files on the DVD, you need to do that in something like Color with the Pan/Scan tools, or in Shake. I would suggest Color, Shake requires a few grains of salt to learn to use, Color is similar, but much easier to use.

No offense (and I could just be having a bad day today) but simplicity is most often the way to go as an editor/DVD Author. Use what Final Cut Studio/DVDSP/your camera's manufacture suggests. HDV is and always will be a compressed format, interlaced will always look like shit on our LCD's when we preview the DVD, 24p is overrated (in my opinion), my JVCHD110U was a waste of money (always in the shop more than I get to use it) and Final Cut Studio 2 has never, ever given me 1 hiccup, or issue. So I must ask, what are you guys doing wrong?....

Hope you're day got better Jim!
Can I ask which camera you switched to after following your wrangles with the JVC?

Hope you're day got better Jim!
Can I ask which camera you switched to after following your wrangles with the JVC?

I have a Sony V1U as well as the JVC. The V1u is a nice little camera, I am happy with it, small enough for my wife to use, and sometimes the autofocus is a nice break, however, during this current shoot I am doing, I do wish I had my JVC, for more control during focus, and being able to set certain setting.
It is a love hate thing, that Sony is nice, but very limited compared to what I canmake the 110U do.

Like Dave Lammey said, the DVD player itself has to be set for the screen. I have seen this problem over and over with people who don't realize the DVD player has a setting to tell it if you are using a 4:3 display or a 16:9. Get this setting wrong and all DVD's will not play as expected. If it's set to 4:3, then a 16:9 DVD will be letterboxed on the output of the DVD player. If it's set to 16:9, no letterbox.

So many people think it's a setting during the encode or authoring stage that's wrong when most times it's the player.

Dave Beaty

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